DGCA Cuts 10% of Indigo flights, Major action as Indigo CEO Peiter Elbers met with Civil Aviation Minister, Flights have been cut from the previous 5% in the morning to 10% Now.
As flight cancellations and delays continued for 8 consecutive days on Tuesday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation ordered the airline to curtail its operations by 10% while “continuing to cover all its destinations as before”. Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai remained the worst hit cities with over 400 flight cancellations on Tuesday.
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Earlier in the day, DGCA curtailed the airline’s winter flight schedule by 5% saying that IndiGo could nt handle the operations efficiently. IndiGo is one of the largest domestic carriers in the country and commands close to 60% of India s domestic market. As per media reports, IndiGo operates close to 2,20 flights a day in the winter schedule.
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The reason Behind Delays
The reason behind the delays is being regarded as the failure to implement the second phase of the updated Flight Duty Time limitations (FDTL) that came into effect in November. Teh new rules have been aimed at reducing fatigue and improving rest periods for pilots, but on recent past it has been suggested that IndiGo has been facing a lot of pilot shortage.
Indigo had not flagged any problems during the key meeting that was held on December 1, just one day before the airline started seeing mass cancellations. Naidu squarely blamed IndiGo’s ‘ internal System” and defended the crew roster norms.
IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers summoned by DGCA
Pieter Elbers was summoned by the ministry to provide an update, he confirmed that the 100% of the refunds for flights affected till December 6th have been completed. A strict instruction to expedite the completion of the remaining funds and baggage handover was given.
The Ministry has stated as per Ram Mohan Naidu Jinjarapu the ministry considers that its necessary to curtail the overall Indigo routes , which will help in stabilizing the airlines operations and lead to be reduced cancellations, a curtailment of 10% has been ordered.
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